03.-16.09.2007: Dawson City - Dempster Highway - Moose Creek - Campbell Highway - Faro We drove up the steep hill to Dome Hill to get views of the Yukon and Klondike Rivers along with Dawson City. It was certainly a hard slog for poor old Winnie first thing in the morning! Then we drove down and got straight onto the ferry across the Yukon. We drove slowly on and off but we managed to do it without ditching. The ferry is free and operates 24 hours a day. At peak times there can be a three hour wait because it is only a small ferry. On the other side, we drove along the "Top of the World Highway". Again, this road leads to the border into Alaska but we turned around well before the border because the road got considerably worse and it started raining. We had to wait for about 30 minutes because we just missed one ferry and the next one ignored us and let all the small cars on. So Kirsten hopped on as a foot passenger so she could take photos of Winnie on the ferry. That evening we took advantage of our tickets for Diamond Tooth Gertie's which were valid for a second night and watched the show again. We met Pat and Barbara from Michigan and watched Pat playing Blackjack. She managed to get 8 cards without going bust - that must be some sort of record!! Kirsten decided she wanted to lose $20 and played. It didn't take long but she managed to win a free drink which we donated to Pat - there isn't much point us "wasting" it on a free Ginger Ale!! Later, the dancers and Gertie came out and we managed to get a photo with Helen trying to look pretty!!! The next morning was very foggy so we waited until it lifted. Then we drove off to see the Dredger No. 4 which is the largest dredge in North America and is used to dig for gold! Then we said a fond farewell to Dawson City and drove onto the famous Dempster Highway. We averaged only 20 mph because the road wasn't too good but the autumn colours were something else!! So we had numerous photo stops on the way. We headed for a spot that Ray had told us about to see the beaver family at work. We parked up at a viewpoint overlooking the colourful valley towards Tombstone Mountain for the night. And what a cold night it was!! In fact we had to change our plans for our evening meal because the meatballs we had taken out of the freezer this morning hadn't defrosted! It's time we were heading south! We were only planning to drive the first 60 miles of the Dempster but at one of the many viewpoints, we met a man from Switzerland who said that the colours North of Eagle Plains (230 miles) were fantastic. So we decided to go and have a look. We spotted another very cute moose just a bit further on and then came across Katrin and Frank from Germany. They were having problems with their second flat tyre since driving along the Dempster. Their jack had been buckled the first time they had used it and needed another jack. We were the second people to stop and help. The first guy, from Switzerland, stopped to get his jack out for them and noticed that he, too, had a flat tyre and so was using his jack to change his tyre when we arrived. We got our jack out and Frank managed to get the tyre changed. Fortunately they had had their first flat repaired in Eagle Plains otherwise they wouldn't have had a spare at all! The Dempster does have a bad reputation for flat tyres and we drove even slower after that! Further north the Highway gets really bad for the last 40 miles approaching Eagle Plains. We were also very low on petrol and only just managed to roll into the petrol station on our last fumes. Then we got a shock at how much it cost us to refuel - horrendous prices up here (about $5-20 US per gallon!) We drove as far as the Arctic Circle for the obligatory photo. We have crossed it before in Norway. The Arctic Circle is a just a line marking the most southern point where there is 24 hours of daylight on the 21st of June. But we are now into September and so there is no longer any Midnight Sun here. It was worth coming this far north because the Tundra is all in reds, oranges and yellows and quite a spectacle. We could have driven a further 200 miles up to Inuvik in the North Western Territories but we had already heard that it was basically closed for the season. So we headed back to Eagle Plains and had to top up with petrol to get us back to the next petrol station at the start of the Dempster. A very nice man gave us a $1 discount which we gratefully accepted. We drove back down the Dempster and managed to miss most of the rain but the evenings were so cold that we had to get out hot water bottles for our feet just to sit inside Winnie without freezing to death! On Saturday we drove through Tombstone Territorial Park again. It was dull and cloudy but the fall colours seemed to even more brilliant without the sun shining on them. By the time we got down to the end of the Highway, Winnie was filthy dirty. We had virtually run out of food and were hoping to get something to eat at the petrol station at the start of the Dempster. But the food was too expensive and not what we fancied and they also charged $5 per shower. So we just got some petrol and decided to drive 70 miles to get to Moose Creek Lodge. But when we got there they were also closed! So we ended up eating Ryvita for our evening meal! We parked up at a creek near to the lodge for the night and then went back the next day to see if they had anything. But they had run out of sausage rolls and we didn't fancy anything else on the menu. So we drove to a small place called Pelly Crossing where we got a $1 shower and we bought some eggs and other supplies and made ourselves pancakes - yummy!!! Afterwards we picked up some more supplies at Carmacks and filled up with drinking water and headed off East along the Campbell Highway towards Watson Lake. We found a spot at Eagle's Nest Bluff for the night. On Monday it had rained all night and carried raining throughout the day so it was a good job we were heading for a little town called Faro which had a campground that only charged $10 per night for a full hook-up. We thought we would stay for three nights and try to get up to date with our website. But we ended up spending six nights there! The visitor centre was very helpful and they had a book swap there too. Unfortunately the only petrol station here was burned down only last week by vandals. But there is another petrol station 40 miles further east which hopefully has petrol, otherwise we won't make it to Watson Lake! We paid for our camping nights and because it was raining we just plugged in the electricity for the night. It had been so cold recently that we were really looking forward to getting the electric heater out and we watched a film for the evening. The next day, the sun came out and we gave Winnie a much needed wash. Then we went on a short 2 mile walk to Van Gorder Falls. For the rest of our time here we worked on the website and Kirsten did some video clips for it. We also got all our washing done and various other repairs that needed doing. We also took advantage of being able to use our electric oven for cooking as we seem to have been eating rather a lot of Ryvita lately!